SASKATOON – Improving hulless or naked oat varieties could be one way to expose the value of a long-ignored crop.
Andrew Barr, an Australian oat breeder speaking to an international conference on oat and barley research at the University of Saskatchewan, said the hulless oat is a response to the trend of declining oat acreage around the world.
Oat acreage has been falling since tractors replaced horses, but other feed grains appropriate to single stomach livestock, such as pigs and poultry, are on the increase.
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“On the face of it, naked oats, when you just look at the analysis, is one of the best grains around,” he said.
Indigestible hull
Oat seeds are a good source of protein, but the large amount of indigestible hull fibre reduces its nutrient value. So-called hulless oats develop a covering, but it falls off during harvest.
But early varieties are far from perfect, Barr said.
Although a couple of varieties were developed in the 1980s, most are the product of Canadian and British research in the last five years.
There has been surprising progress considering that lines are only three to five steps away from the wild genetic source found in China, he said.
But problems persist. Some varieties have a high percentage of rogue hulled seeds. Some also have trichome or hairs that are an itchy nuisance at harvest.
In Australia, varieties have also been shown to be more susceptible to drought than hulled types.
But the biggest problem is yield, often as much as 30 percent lower than hulled oats, he said.
“Farmers will take some convincing to believe the market will pay a sufficient premium to compensate them for their yield loss,” he said.
There is a problem common to new crops. Production is needed to develop markets, but farmers don’t want to grow it if markets are uncertain.
Hulless oats have found favor with weanling pigs, pet birds, poultry producers and the Japanese race horse market, he said.
“But in terms of world market, it will be a long time before naked oats are available in quantities that would be able to be traded.”
